The Don of Tiki
“Kit [Ebersbach] and I both love this music and the complexity,” says Don Tiki bandleader and ad man Lloyd “Fluid Floyd” Kandell. “We wanted to honor this genre of music with new sounds.”
(All photos by Brandon Miyagi.)
In the mid-1990s, local ad man Lloyd Kandell was attending a Saturday morning piano recital hosted by one of his clients who sold Steinways when he saw a piano legend sitting in the audience. It was Martin Denny, the famed pianist and composer who, in the 1950s and ‘60s, helped pioneer a unique brand of lounge music that combined instrumental pop with a variety of world instruments, from conga drums and Afro-Cuban bongos to Burmese gongs and Japanese kotos. Plus unusual elements, such as exotic bird calls, big cat roars, and the shrieks of primates.
Named “Exotica,” after Denny’s Billboard chart-topping first album, this genre of tropical-sounding music was intended to invoke a sense of intrigue, sensuality, and danger imagined to exist in tribal areas throughout Oceania, the Caribbean, the Amazon, and Africa for armchair adventurers listening on the Mainland U.S.
Kandell introduced himself and the two became fast friends, swapping stories about local culture (Denny was in his 80s and had settled in Hawai‘i by this point) and performing music (Kandell previously DJ’ed between punk shows at the former Wave Waikīkī). Denny explained how, when his band was performing at the International Market Place in Waikīkī in the ‘50s, percussionist Augie Colón began mimicking the sounds of bufo frogs croaking at the banyan tree nearby one night. Visitors who returned the following evening were disappointed when they didn’t hear the sounds again, so Denny and Colón developed a variety of wild sounds to accompany their shows, thus Exotica was born. Kandell was so inspired by Denny’s story that he approached his longtime musical pal, Kit Ebersbach.
“Martin Denny was 43 when he performed [at the International Market Place], so I told Kit that it’s not too late for us to be rockstars too,” laughs Kandell. “I was also watching the resurgence of big band sounds with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and the swing revival in the ‘90s and—here’s my marketing side coming in—I thought people might like to slow down and enjoy some Exotica music as a throwback too.”
Enjoy it they did. Ebersbach and Kandell formed the band Don Tiki and soon after the release of their first album, The Forbidden Sounds of Don Tiki, in 1997 (which featured Martin Denny, who became a mentor), the group was invited for their first live performance at the renowned Kahiki Supper Club in Ohio.
“This was one of the original places from the Don the Beachcomber era; it was a huge place with a Polynesian A-frame design with lifesize Rapa Nui mo‘ai statues guarding the front and a giant Tiki inside with glowing red eyes… And here we were, this traveling troupe of a dozen people,” says Kandell. 16 performers, a mix of musicians and dancers choreographed by legendary Waikīkī showman Tunui Tully and dressed in elaborate costumes and headdresses, flew out for the stage show. (The Don Tiki band also included Lopaka Colón, son of original Exotica innovator Augie Colón.)
The concert would ultimately be the final performance held at the soon-to-be-shuttered Kahiki—but it would be the first of many for Don Tiki, which went on to perform at numerous venues over the next 25 years, including the Wassermusik Festival in Berlin and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. Four additional albums followed—Skinny Dip with Don Tiki in 2001; Don Tiki Adulterated in 2004, which featured remixes by DJs, such as Ursula 1000 and 8fatfat8; Don Tiki South of the Boudoir in 2009, with more Brazilian rhythms; and Don Tiki’s Hot Lava Holiday Songs in 2012.
“After the first album, we wanted to bring Don Tiki into the 21st century because some listeners perceived us as just a retro tribute band, but that was never really our intention,” Kandell says. “Kit and I both love this music and the complexity. We wanted to honor this genre of music with new sounds.”
Their new songs also meant new names. Kit Ebersbach’s on-stage persona is “Perry Coma,” a nod to the easy listening performer from his parents’ era. Meanwhile, Lloyd Kandell became “Fluid Floyd,” a nickname acquired during Kandell’s early body surfing days on the north shore of Kaua‘i.
“Fluid Floyd sounds like the kind of guy who drinks two Mai Tais for breakfast each morning, which was perfect for Don Tiki,” says Kandell. “But when I was out surfing Lumaha‘i Beach in the late ‘70s, everybody had a nickname like ‘Dog Boy’ or ‘Rat Face’ or whatever. Those guys called me ‘Fluid Floyd,’ which also worked when I first got into music because of punk names like Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious.”
More than two decades after first connecting with Martin Denny, Kandell is making new connections with the next generation of Tiki enthusiasts, which helps keep Don Tiki strong as ever. In 2021, Kandell and Ebersbach connected with local record label Aloha Got Soul to release Don Tiki Hot Like Lava, their first 12-inch LP (the vinyl record is lava red, of course), which comes with a custom pair of 3D glasses to view the trippy 3D cover as well as an optional jade glazed Tiki mug designed by talented Argentine illustrator Jorge “Dr.” Alderete. This past August, Don Tiki headlined a packed concert at the Hawai‘i Theatre as the epic conclusion of a three-day Tiki event in Waikīkī.
“A friend once called us the B-52s of tropical music. There’s a lot of humor and it’s a miracle we held the whole troupe together for more than 20 years,” Kandell says. “I think Tiki culture has evolved and continues to evolve. This has become a way for people to revisit a part of the 1950s and ‘60s that they may not have been alive for, or missed the first time around.”
(All photos by Brandon Miyagi.)